We were there, Molly! After such a scene of crushing and squeezing as never was equalled, we got inside the circus, and with the loss of my new turban and one of my "plats," we reached our box, within two of the stage, and nearly opposite the King. For an hour or so, it was only fainting was going on all around us, with the heat and the violent struggle to get in. Nobody minded the stage at all, where they were doing the same kind of thing we used to see long ago. Ten men in pinkish buff, vaulting over an old white horse, and the clown tumbling over the last of them with a screech; the little infant of three years, with a strap round its waist, standing and tottering on the horse's back; the man with the brass balls and the basin, and the other one that stood on the bottles,--all passed off tiresome enough, till a grand flourish of trumpets announced Signor Annibale, the great Modern Hercules. In he rode, Molly, full gallop, all dressed in a light, flesh-colored, web, and looking so like naked that I screeched out when I saw him. His hair was divided on his forehead, and cut short all round the head; and, indeed, I must confess he was a fine-looking man. After a turn or two, brandishing a big club, he galloped in again, but quickly reappeared with a woman lying over one of his arms, and her hair streaming down half-way to the ground. This was Sofia; and you may guess the enthusiasm of the audience at her coming! There she lay, like in a trance, as he dashed along at full speed, the very tip of one foot only touching the saddle, and her other leg dangling down like dead. It was shocking to hear the way they talked of her symmetry and her shape,--not but they saw enough to judge of it, Molly!--till at last the giant stopped to breathe a little just under our box. K. I. and the young men, of course, leaned over to have a good look at her with their glasses, when suddenly James screamed, "By the ------ --I won't say what--it is herself!" Mary Anne and I both rose together. The sight left my eyes, Molly, for she looked up at me, and who was it--but the Countess that James was going to marry! There she was, lying languidly on the giant, smiling up at us as cool as may be. I gave a screech, Molly, that made the house ring, and went off in Mary Anne's arms. If this is n't disgrace enough to bring me to the grave, Nature must have given stronger feelings than she knows to your ever afflicted and heart-broken Jemima Dodd. LETTER XXIII. MISS CAROLINE DODD TO MISS COX, AT MISS MINCING'S ACADEMY, BLACK ROCK, IRELAND Sestri, Gulf of Genoa. My dear Miss Cox,--I had long looked forward to our visit to Genoa in order to write to you. I had fancied a thousand things of the "Superb City" which would have been matters of interest, and hoped that many others might have presented themselves to actual observation. But with that same fatality by which the future forever evades us, we have come and gone again, and really seen nothing.